How far the memory of long past events, unsupported by records made at the time, can be
depended upon, is not only an interesting but an exceedingly important and practical
question. We all believe that that which we remember actually happened, and we
resent the imputation that our memory may play us tricks, that we may confuse that which
really occurred with that which we have imagined, suspected, desired, feared, that that
which we have before our mind's eye as a matter of personal experience may be nothing of
the sort, but rather, in whole or in part, a sort of dream which we have mistaken for
reality. Yet nothing is more certain than that memory is fallible. We not only
forget, but we remember things which never happened, and which can be definitely and
positively proved never to have happened within our experience at the time. Certain
it is, too, that memory does not improve by age. As time elapses, some details of an
event or scene are forgotten, while other ideas attach themselves to our mental picture,
so that it may occur that in time the resulting memory is almost entirely false, while
perhaps retaining all the vividness of actuality. When several persons have been
witnesses of the same occurrence, this process is going on independently in the minds of
each, so that no matter how well they may have agreed at the time, they may come to have
entirely different and conflicting recollections as time goes on. Persons who are
under criminal charges usually find it to their interest to have their trial postponed as
long as possible, partly for the reason that the memory of witnesses becomes rapidly
impaired; they are more likely to contradict each other, to the befuddlement of the jury
and the obvious advantage of the accused.

It is a grave question as to whether a recollection of an event said to have occurred
thirty or forty years ago can be accepted as evidence, in the absence of confirmatory
records made at the time, and if so, what is to be said of it when the testimony of the
very same person, given and placed on record at the time, contradicts it?

In saying what follows, I distinctly wish to disclaim any intention of taking sides in
the old-time controversy over the honor and honesty of William Q. Judge. Theosophy,
the Ancient Wisdom, existed before Mr. Judge and would continue to exist without
him. He has left a body of writings which must be judged by their own inherent value
and by their agreement with what has been imparted to us from other sources which can be
presumed to be authoritative. At the same time, he was for many years and up to her
death, the trusted associate of H.P. Blavatsky, and there is no evidence on record that
she did not trust him implicitly to the very last. For this reason, and from the
natural desire to see fair play, one is prompted to inquire whether any charges brought
against him today by a person of standing are sufficiently well-founded to be given
serious consideration.

Mr. G.R.S. Mead is a gentleman of whose sincerity and desire to speak the truth I have
not the least question. Further, as regards the Theosophical Movement, he has no axe
to grind, having dissevered himself from it years ago in the effort to get away from the
mass of moral putridity which developed in connection with the infamous Leadbeater
scandal.

In The Occult Review for May (foreign edition, page 323)
in connection with other matters, Mr. Mead makes the distinct
statement that at the time of the Judge controversy in 1894, Mr. Judge made a full
confession to him that he had forged letters from the Mahatmas, which is, in fact, the
original charge against him. We must therefore inquire, simply from a sense of
fairness, how far Mr. Mead's unsupported memory of something purporting to have occurred
thirty-three years ago is to be accepted. Mr. Mead gives no evidence whatever other
than his unconfirmed recollection; he refers to no notes, records, or witnesses of the
interview which he claims to have taken place.

Very important is it, however, that Mr. Mead placed himself on record very shortly
indeed after the Judge investigation in 1894, that this record still exists and flatly
contradicts what he says today and assuming that he spoke honestly at the time, may very
fairly be used in rebuttal of his present-day assertions.

In order to make the contradiction the more glaring, let us place side
by side what Mr. Mead published in "A Letter to the European Section", dated
February 1st, 1895 (issued as a private circular and also printed in Lucifer,
February, 1895), with what he says in The Occult Review for May, 1927 (foreign
edition, page 323). The italics are mind:

Mr. Mead; February 1st, 1895:

Mr. Judge also refused all
private investigation. I and others, who had previously stood by Mr. Judge
unfalteringly, and proved our whole-hearted confidence in a way that cannot easily be
understood by those who were not present during the trying months that preceded the
Committee, could get no straightforward reply to any question . . . . Mr. Judge
could not be persuaded to face any investigation.

Mr. Mead, February 15th, 1927:

I would believe no word
against him till he came over to London to meet the very grave charges brought against him
and I could question him face to face. This I did in a two hours' painful
interview. His private defense to me was, that his forging of the numerous
"Mahatmic" messages on letters written by himself, after H.P.B.'s decease, to
devoted and prominent members of the Society, in the familiar red and blue chalk scripts,
with the occasional impression of the "M" seal, which contained the flaw in the
copy of it which Olcott had had made in Lahore, was permissible, in order to
"economize power", provided that the "messages" had first been
physically received.

Clearly, if it is true that during the Judge controversy, Mr. Judge
himself being present in London, "Mr. Judge refused all private investigation.
I and others ... could get no straightforward reply to any question," it cannot
be true that Mr. Mead had a painful interview with Mr. Judge, who admitted, and attempted
to justify, the grave charges against him.

At the beginning of his letter to the European Section, which, mind you, was written
after the whole incident was closed and Mr. Judge had returned to America, Mr. Mead
assures us that he is now going to unburden himself and let us have his personal opinion
frankly, which was at most merely a matter of surmise. Now, after thirty-three
years, he assures us that what he then handed out as fact was no fact at all, in short,
was what can hardly be regarded as anything but a deliberate falsehood. Today he
charges Judge with complete frankness, while before he charged him with hedging and
concealment. What are we to think of a witness who eats his own words in this
fashion? Trusting to Mr. Mead's truthfulness in 1895 and to his good intentions in
1927, I can only conclude that in the time which has elapsed his memory has played him a
shabby trick, that by dwelling on the charges made against Judge by Annie Besant he has
actually woven them into his mental picture as a personal experience with Judge, and that
the present charge is of absolutely no evidential value whatever.

Let us then, in the light of the above, consider the further evidence of Mr. Judge's
moral turpitude which Mr. Mead presents. He says (pages 323-4):

Shortly after Judge's decease, one of his two chief mediums came to London to see me
privately. In a four hours' interview she went with painful minuteness into every detail
of how it had all been done, and wound up with an utterly amoral proposition purporting to
come from the "Mahatmas", which was a very tempting offer had I been a
charlatan. I very impolitely told the lady to inform her "Masters"
that they might go to h--l. . . . Finally it may interest readers to know the exact terms
of the proposal made me by the "Mahatmas" of Judge's medium who came to see me
at Avenue road. They were these: That if I would join up with the Judge
section and go to the U.S.A., they would give it their blessing and support; that if I
refused, they would turn the whole Theosophical Society adrift and throw all their
influence into the Rosicrucian movement.

Is this statement to be regarded as a true memory or an illusory one? Even
supposing such an interview to have taken place, what evidence has Mr. Mead that the woman
was telling the truth about Judge, and that she was not merely fishing for business?
Is not the very fact, if fact it was, that she approached Mead with a suggestion to join
the Judge faction, backed by the statement that Judge was a fraud, a sufficient proof of
her moral and mental irresponsibility? One wonders that Mr. Mead could have regarded
it as anything other than a joke.

Mr. Mead further says (page 323):

Subsequently, another old friend who had been in Lansdowne road and Avenue road with
us, and had gone to the U.S.A. to work under Judge, and who had helped him in the forging
of these messages, came to London and owned up to me.

Whether this "old friend", who had been a confederate in a fraud, was
conscience stricken or awed by Mr. Mead, does not appear, but Judge was a lawyer and as
such presumably acquainted with the hazards of forgery, and it is exceedingly improbable
that he was fool enough to have employed a confederate instead of doing the very simple
tricks in privacy. Certainly, writing with a blue or red pencil over the face of a
letter and affixing a seal are not acts which would call for an assistant and the risk of
exposure. The story is entertaining but by no means convincing.

Mr. Mead's memory needs inspecting in other respects. In his interesting article
in The Quest, April, 1926 (page 294) he says:

On February 17, 1907, the President-Founder, Colonel H.S. Olcott, died. In
considering previously this sometime necessary future event, those of us who were chiefly
interested in the fortunes of the Society, had always agreed that in no case could the
private leadership of the Esoteric Section, which was founded entirely on a purely
dogmatic basis, and the public Presidential office of a Society with a professedly
entirely open and undogmatic platform be combined in the same person. This ruled out
Mrs. Besant from the future presidency. The difficulty was to find a fit candidate
to succeed Olcott. The post was offered to myself; but I refused . . . . Mrs.
Besant, whose memory was always conveniently short when there was any opportunity of
extending her position and exalting herself, allowed herself to be nominated by some
vociferous followers. By the teamwork of the E.S. under her orders throughout the
Theosophical world she was duly elected. I opposed her election publicly.

This entirely misrepresents the facts. The fact is that Col. Olcott, on his
deathbed, and acting upon what purported to be direct orders from the Mahatmas who
appeared to him personally, "appointed" Annie Besant as his successor in the
presidency. His letter making this announcement and dated Adyar, January 7th, 1907,
was widely circulated and was known to Mr. Mead. It will be found in The
Theosophic Messenger, April, 1907, page 99. It appears that the
President-Founder had been accorded the rather empty privilege of nominating his
successor subject to ratification by a vote of the members. After some quibbling as
to whether this "appointment by psychic orders" was a regular nomination an
election was held and Mrs. Besant received the requisite number of votes. That she
was "nominated by some vociferous followers" does not appear, however vociferous
these may have been in supporting her nomination by Col. Olcott. Who offered the
post to Mr. Mead remains a mystery. He was clearly in great demand, for he himself
tells us (letter to the T.S., March 1, 1907, in The Theosophic Messenger, April,
1907, page 109) that the Mahatmas even appointed him as Vice-President!

Mr. Mead's recent statements about his relationship to H.P.B. and his editorial
functions are equally open to question. In The Quest, April 1926, page 290,
he tells us:

In 1889 I gave up my profession of teaching, and went to work with Yelena Petrovna
Blavatskaia (generally known as Mme. Blavatsky). For the last three years of her
life I was her private secretary, and in closest intimacy with her. I was sub-editor
of her monthly magazine.

And in the Occult Review article above quoted (page 320) he says speaking of The
Secret Doctrine:

I come now to the editing of the revised edition. My competence, such as it was,
and authority for this task depended from the fact that for the last three years of her
life, I had Englished, corrected or edited everything H.P.B. wrote for publication,
including the MS of The Voice of the Silence, and that, too, with her entire assent
and approval. She was quite humble in this respect in regard to the form of the
better things she wrote, or had written through her.

Now H.P.B. died May 8th, 1891. If the above date --- 1889 --- is correct, he
could not have been her private secretary "for the last three years of
her life." Further, The Secret Doctrine was put through the press in
1888, which is included in these "last three years," and was by far the most
important work she did, yet Mr. Mead had nothing whatever to do with its
publication. As for The Voice of the Silence, first published in 1889, and
the Key to Theosophy, also first published in 1889, the originals of these are
highly characteristic of H.P.B. If Mr. Mead had "Englished, corrected or
edited" the original manuscript of The Voice of the Silence, why was it
necessary to make a further complete revision after her death, as was done in the current
London edition, the changes in which are characteristic of Mr. Mead? (See Critic,
January 3, 17, 1923). And if he had such complete liberty with The Key to
Theosophy, why was it necessary, after her death, to make changes averaging one to
every three lines? (See Critic, August 1, 1923). Let one place the
originals and the revisions side by side and it will be obvious that if Mr. Mead really
did any work on the originals at all, he did not have the sweeping authority he claims and
did not dare to make the changes he made later when she was dead and could not
check his proclivities.

Now that Mr. Mead seems to be in the mood of talking for posterity, perhaps he will
tell us whether, in view of what he says of Mr. Judge today, he was really telling the
truth in 1895 when he stated that he could get no straightforward reply to any question,
and also why, if he was really the all-important person in H.P.B.'s office that he now
professes to have been, he did not make those revisions at the time, instead of waiting
till she was out of the way. The two articles referred to, interesting as they are,
are quite as much an expose of Mr. Mead as an exposition of certain phases of theosophical
history; in fact, I think they are decidedly more so. Here we have the real Mr.
Mead, while we do not have real theosophical history. And for this revelation he is
to be thanked.